Joined up tarmac

For reasons explained in the second half of this post, I entered a rabbit-hole about Irish roads and their numbers. Before there were any Motorways in the Republic, there were T for Trunk roads and L for Link roads [as R from my father's AA Road Book of Ireland] and a spider's web of bohereens and back-roads which were known and used only by local inhabitants, so didn't deserve a number. T and L roads were renamed and renumbered in 1977 as N for National roads. Nobody used these numbers! The main road from Dublin to Waterford, Cork & Limerick was the Naas Road. After Naas [30km from Dublin] you had to memorize the list of towns and villages along the way: Kilcullen, Castledermott, Carlow, Leighlinbridge, Paulstown [L for Waterford, R for Kilkenny], Gowran, Dungarvan [not that one, the smaller one], Thomastown, Ballyhale, Mullinavat, Waterford!

The British system radiates from London and goes clockwise A1 Edinburgh A2 Dover A3 Portsmouth A4 Cardiff A5 Holyhead A6 Carlisle. Splitting the country into zones. A10 to Cambridge, A11 Norwich, A12 Lowestoft A13 Southend etc. A7,8,9 do a similar job in Scotland.

N primary routes  N roads in  Ireland go from Dublin anti-clockwise N1 Belfast N2 Derry N3 Cavan N4 Sligo N5 Westport N6 Galway N7 Limerick N8 Cork N9 Waterford N10 Kilkenny N11 Wexford. N12-N26 are other Primary routes not radiating from Dublin. N17 by the SawDoctors; N25 The great Southern Trunk Rosslare to Cork etc. N50 aka M50 is the Dublin Ring-road and N40 the Cork Bypass.

N secondary routes from N51 [Devlin CoWH to Drogheda CoLH] up to N87 [Belturbet CoCN for 30km to the N.I. borrrder]  stitch up the gaps in the network.

R regional routes are designated to fill the gaps between the gaps. They are labelled Rxxx, and the numbers are sort of regional. They also radiate anti-clockwise round Dublin R1xx in the NE to R7xx hereabouts in the Sunny SE: we can see the R702 from our haggard. Some R roads are re-designated from previous N Primary routes which have been superseded by Motorways and can be wide & straight with generous hard-shoulders. R8xx and R9xx are exclusively short, urban, and designed to help tourists get out of town. 

Local Roads are tiered in three classes and numbered accordingly either Lxxxx or Lxxxxx and the same number may duplicated by different county engineers
L-primary are numbered L1000 to L4999 and should be at least 4m wide
L-secondary are L5000 to L 8999 and may be less than 4m wide somewhere along them
L-tertiary are L10001 to L89999 - Wikipedia says that the first four digits indicate from which N R or L road these tertiary routes originate. But that's not true unless there's some quaint code involved: local tertiary lane / driveway L20185 junctions with the R702 not the L2018 [it's about 500m from my sofa]. It's been a while since I posted about L4015 being in Waterford not LAOIS.

The story continues into anecdote:

In my engagement with the Barrow Bus, I hope I didn't sound too shrill and all somebody is wrong on the internet. I am especially glad that I didn't pass on a "helpful" [ie passive aggressive] note about the location of the Sculloge Gap Car Park: "Not R702 x L3001 but rather R702 x L 7049" because a) I was wrong in reckoning that B.B. thought L3001 was the bus-stop location b) I was wrong in believing that L7049 intersected with the R702. Although you can see why I and google-maps might think that:

The ↙ indicates where that supposed intersection occurred. I was left the bus at that place, after Paul-the-Driver had kindly and helpfully dropped me there and not where [R702 x L3001] he found me. I had a touch of cognitive dissonance when I saw the Wexford CoCo sign for "L6153" where I fully expected "L7049".  

The clue is in the Wexford CoCo. Because it turns out that L and R roads, their naming, signage and maintenance are solely under the control of the local authority. And they do not speak to each other. Citizen Andrew McCarthy at OpenStreetMap has culled and made available all the Co Carlow road ID data. While Citizen pjna at OpenStreetMap has done the same for a chunk of the Co Wexford inventory. Thus [the road of whc we treat . . .]

L-6153-1

NULL

Kiltealy

NULL

170m

is all that appears for the road-fragment in question. NULL start;  NULL end; no checked-by. Whereas on the Carlow side we have [TMI!?]

Southern

L-7049-0

Three roads at the bounds of Crannagh and Rathanna

via Knockroe

CoWexford bounds at Sculloge Bridge

width 5m

length 3,140m

100%

AndrewMcCarthy

The naming of L-roads is not quite arbtitrary but there is much leeway. How hard would it be to have Roads Wexford talk to Roads Carlow and use the same label for this same road?? Too late now, of course, there is the sunk cost of the metal sign and the label "L-6153" spread who knows where in who knows what media and documents. For further confusion, there are other L-6153s in Cavan and Limerick! Gotta say, by contrast, that the Irish County Library Service put aside their internecine bitchin' to embrace uniform catalogue, searching and loan-software, zero overdue fines, PLUS the ability to return books to any library in the country. 

PS. The following Sunday, Barrow Bus had internalized the data because I met the bus at "my" Sculloge Gap Car Park and tootled along very familiar by-roads to Graiguenamanagh. I doubt anyone else will take advantage of thus correcting the location of one boondock bus-stop.